


Too Little Too Late

by wincanon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Kerberos Mission, Letters to Shiro, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), and i tried to polish it up a bit, i wrote this pre season five, love letters sort of but hey, pre-kerberos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 04:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15502572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincanon/pseuds/wincanon
Summary: A collection of letters Keith wrote to Shiro while he was on the Kerberos mission.





	Too Little Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this was originally written as a piece meant for a larger whole, but I had started it pre-season five and found the document again just recently. I attempted to polish it up a bit, but there may still be some mistakes. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy!

_Shiro,_

Adam told me he was going to be writing you letters while you were gone, said it was going to help him cope until you got back. Not that he and I are exactly on speaking terms right now anyway, but...there’s some sort of camaraderie between us right now I guess, or at least, he thinks there is. I don’t get it, but so long as it only lasts until you get back, I can handle it-which, I guess you getting back should be fifteen months from now? If it takes seven months, give or take, to reach Kerberos plus the time you spend there and the seven back...That’s...a long time. I’ll be a senior by then, but I guess that means you’ll be back in time for my graduation, huh?  
  
All I know is that you’d better be seeing enough stars out there for the both of us. I know how excited you were about being chosen as pilot, and I know how hard you worked to prove that you could do it. I remember how tired you’d be after training all day every day but you’d still insist on going off-campus on Friday nights for dinner.  
  
I gotta say, those are some of the best memories, and we’d better get dinner the first Friday night you’re back. I don’t care how many officials and news stations and fans are trying to get your attention, you and me and maybe Adam if you guys are cool, Little City Diner, 7pm first Friday that you get back. 

_-Keith._

***

_Shiro,_

 _I meant to write more letters. I really did._  
  
I’m sorry. I was going to write one for every month, but today has been the seventh month and you three just touched down on Kerberos and this is only my second letter. It’s not that I didn’t think about you, I did, I just...There’s so much I want to say and talk about, but none of it seems right to do over pen and paper. I’ve started and scrapped so many letters but I guess I’ll just wait until you get back in eight months.  
  
And this is the halfway point, or at least close enough.  
  
Classes have been...classes. Honestly, they suck ass, but I know the only way to make it out of this damned place and do something is to pass them, so I do. I haven’t failed a test yet.  
  
I spend a lot of time down in the simulator. I’m at level 13 right now. Didn’t you cap out at 12? Yeah, that’s what I thought~  
  
Iverson has been on my ass though. Keeps talking about how if I just had a bit more discipline _I could be the next you, but I’d rather you be you and me be me. Whoever it is that I am, anyway._  
  
He says that the Garrison is planning a trip to Europa within the next few years, that they want to drill through the ice crust and take samples from the underground ocean, and that I might be a candidate to pilot it. So if that happens, and my team finds life in that ocean, sorry bud, but I’ll be more famous than you. The pilot of the mission that discovered life outside of Earth.  
  
Of course, drilling through the ice will take longer than the month it’s taking you on Kerberos, but the flight will be shorter, and Iverson said they’d send two ships so...maybe you and I will be flying together.  
  
We can talk about that more when you get back though...in eight months. I hope it goes faster than these first seven have. Sorry this letter is all scattered and short. There’s so much I have to say but I don’t know how to put it down on paper. I don’t know if you’ll ever even read these. It’d be weird for me to give them to you when you get back, but who knows.  
  
I’ll try and write more often.  
  
I’ll see you in eight months. 

__

_-Keith_

***

_Takashi,_

I’m writing this on the day that the news aired, saying there was a pilot error on the mission and that you and Matt and Mr. Holt are dead.  
  
They didn’t even tell me. Iverson, the professors, Adam, _nobody._ They didn’t even tell the students. They let us all find out on the news.  
  
I don’t believe it, Takashi. I know it’s not true. Fuck them and the fucking pilot error. You’d never make a goddamn error that would endanger your team. ~~I can’t~~ You’re not dead. I **know it.** I’d know if you were and they can shove the pilot error bullshit up their asses.  
  
Iverson can’t give me any details. He doesn’t know jack shit and I might not either right now but you can be damned sure I’ll figure out what happened.  
  
You’ll be back in a little over seven months anyway and you and me are going out to dinner that Friday night, okay? That’s just how this is going to work. I’ll see you then. 

_-Keith_

***

_Shiro,_

The news was announced the day before yesterday, and yesterday classes were canceled so I snuck into Iverson’s office to check his files. I probably could have gotten out of it, even when he walked in on me. I could have pulled some excuse, something.  
  
And then he went off on me.  
  
Next thing I knew, he had a broken nose and I was kicked out of the Garrison.  
  
I know this isn’t what you wanted for me. I know you worked so hard to keep me there and you took so much shit because of me and you always made sure I was doing my best but I can’t take it anymore. I can’t be there without you, listening to them spew bullshit about the Kerberos mission.  
  
So I’m back out here at the shack. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t really...know where else I would go, but there’s something going on out here in the desert anyway. I can feel it. Some kind of energy. I’ll show you eventually.  
  
As for now...this place is kind of worse for wear. I had to repair half of the roof just to keep from freezing my ass off at night, even though I ~~naturally~~ took everything I could from the Garrison. Including a few blankets and enough food to last me long enough to figure out what to do next. I know that, legally, I’m not supposed to be on my own, but I’m not going back into the system just for them to kick me out again when I turn 18.  
  
I’ll figure it out though. Maybe this place can even look nice by the time you get back. Who knows. I was a fixer-upper when you found me. Maybe this shack just needs a bit of tlc too. Which reminds me, I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you for, you know...being you, helping me like you did, never giving up on me.  
  
_I won’t give up on you either, Takashi._

_-Keith._

***

_Shiro,_

It’s been nine months, almost ten since you left, and I’ve got this whole “living on my own thing” figured out.  
  
So the electricity runs off a generator, which runs off of gas, which there is a big surplus of in the shed. That I don’t have to worry about.  
  
Food was a bit harder. I found a lot of old tools in the shed too though and pawned off the ones I wouldn’t be using, and with that I bought a lot of stuff. Stuff even you could cook, aka you just pour it in a bowl and put it in the microwave.  
  
I mean canned stuff, Shiro. That’s all you could ever cook, but just to be safe, you won’t ever have to cook if I’m around. I don’t need you burning off your eyebrows.  
  
_... Again._  
  
I also might have stolen a hoverbike from the Garrison and repainted it. They have 35 others, they won’t miss one. It’s the closest I’ll probably ever get to flying now anyway.  
  
I’m still expecting you back in a little over five months.  
  
The futon’s big enough that you can crash here if you want to get away from the Garrison for a bit, and the shack is closer to town than the Garrison. We can take my hoverbike to the diner.  
  
Remember: the first Friday after you get back. 7pm. 

_-Keith._

***

_Takashi,_

Today marks you being gone for a year. It’s been _a year_ since I’ve seen you or heard your voice.  
  
I miss you.  
  
I’ll see you in three months. 

_-Keith._

***

_Takashi,_

_You were supposed to be back today._  
  
You told me that you weren’t going to leave me. You promised.  
  
Everyone else left. Mom, dad, every foster parent and sibling and so-called friend, but then you came into my life and you believed in me like nobody else did and you gave and gave and never expected anything in return. So when you said you wouldn’t leave me, I trusted you. I trusted you like I haven’t trusted anyone else in a long time.  
  
Please don’t make me regret that, Takashi. Don’t prove yourself wrong.  
  
I need you to come back.  
  
**Please.**

_-Keith._

***

_Shiro,_

_Seventeen months._  
  
I don’t know what to do anymore.  
  
There’s something going on out here in the desert, some sort of energy that’s not from Earth. Something about a blue lion, but there’s only so much time and energy I can devote to that before I come back and lay on the futon and think about you and Kerberos and the Garrison. ~~What I could have done to keep you from going~~ What I could have done to go with you, or to keep you safe, or anything, something. If there’s anything I can do now.  
  
I know the Garrison stopped sending supply ships back in the eighth month when the pilot error was announced. I don’t know how you would live without their supplies, but if anyone can do it, it’s you, Shiro.  
  
I hope you’re okay. I need you to be okay.  
  
And when you come back alive, I’m going to fucking kill you for leaving me like this. 

_-Keith._

***

_Takashi,_

 _Twenty months._  
  
I don’t know if I can do this anymore.  
  
Maybe if I had called you only a friend it wouldn’t be like this. I wouldn’t be hurting so badly but...I know maybe it’s wrong. I know you were happy with Adam for so long and it’s not my place, but he’s moved on and maybe there’s just.  
  
But fuck it. If you’re not coming back what does it matter.  
  
I love you.  
  
I love you more than anything.  
  
I’ve known for a while. I knew since before Kerberos, but I couldn’t tell you then, obviously. Actually I can only tell you now because it’s starting to set in that you’re never going to get this letter. And maybe if I can write it all out it won’t hurt so bad.  
  
I can tell you the moment I first knew.  
  
October 23rd. My seventeenth birthday.  
  
Nobody else cared about my birthday. That was fine. I’m used to people not caring or even people not knowing, and it didn’t bother me. It’s just how things are. But that day you’d been busy all day. I hadn’t heard from you once and that was alright, you were a popular guy. People were always pulling you this way and that and you had more important people to worry about than the little cadet who couldn’t ever look away from you.  
  
And then, wouldn’t you know, as soon as the announcement went on for lights out, there was a knock on my door, and there you stood in the one stupid button-down shirt you owned with a way too happy smile on your face and you just pulled me in for a hug and said, _“Happy birthday, Keith.”_  
  
That was great, but that wasn’t the moment.  
  
No, it was after dinner, when we took a hoverbike far out into the desert and you got off and just fell back into the sand and stared up at the stars.  
  
_“We’re gonna be up there one day,”_ you said, and then you looked up at me and patted the sand beside you, so I laid down too and I said:  
  
_“You know, nobody ever cared enough to take me out for my birthday.”_  
  
And you had the gall to look sad, Shiro, and you said:  
  
_“That’s just because nobody you met before recognized in you what I do. None of them deserved to anyway. You’ve been through a lot, Keith. More than anyone should at your age, and you might think you came out a little broken at the end of it, but you’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. People should call themselves lucky to have you in their lives. I know I do.”_  
  
And yeah. I remembered it word for word. Because you’ve said shit like that before but that was the time I really felt it for some reason. Maybe because you just stared at me the whole time, with your stupid grey eyes whose color I could pick out anywhere.  
  
Either way, it hit me like a fuckin freight train, that feeling. I didn’t really know what it was then, just something warm and good and so fond in a way that I wasn’t used to, not at that caliber at least. It took me a while to figure it out, and when I did, I knew I couldn’t tell you but that’s alright too. I just wanted you to be happy, and you could always do so much better than me, I didn’t want to drag you down and it was so wrong of me then.  
  
Now I’m wondering what would have happened if I had told you before you left. Maybe we would have spent a bit more time together in those days before your ship launched. Maybe you would have rejected me-not in a harsh way, you’re too good a man to do that. You would have just gently turned me down and things would have gone on like they always had.  
  
Maybe I should have said something.  
  
But I didn’t.  
  
And now it’s too late.  
  
I’m sorry, and I miss you. I miss your smile and your compliments, your reassurances, and even just your presence. Your stupid dad jokes and gentle stupid shoulder touches that always made me feel warm even if I never liked anybody else to be so near.  
  
I guess I liked a lot of things from you that I didn’t allow from anyone else. You managed to worm your way into my life and I never thought I would lose you. Not like this, and maybe I took advantage of that and I’m going to spend the rest of my life regretting it.  
  
I’ll try to do my best to make sure I live a life that you would approve of. That’s all I can do now. 

_-Keith._

***


End file.
